Napolitano touts immigration reform after Arizona border tour

TUCSON -- Noting the federal government has made significant progress strengthening border security, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday that the time has come for Congress to update the nation’s immigration system to meet the economic realities of the 21st century.

The former Arizona governor made her remarks at a news conference following a six-hour tour of the Arizona border.

Later Friday, in an exclusive interview with The Arizona Republic, Napolitano also said that in the next few weeks, the Border Patrol will open a new forward-operating base 17 miles east of Douglas, on the border, and that Arizona’s sectors will be the first to get additional technology, such as more mobile video-surveillance systems, being rolled out in coming months.

Napolitano said Border Patrol statistics show that attempts by immigrants to enter the country illegally through Arizona are down 80 percent since the peak in 2000 and down 50 percent since 2008.

That drop has allowed the Border Patrol to focus on narcotics traffickers and human smugglers, she said during the news conference outside the headquarters of the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector.

As a result, the Border Patrol has seen a sharp increase in drug and weapons seizures, as well as the seizure of currency from drug-smuggling profits being shipped to Mexico, she said. She also said that seizures of southbound money and guns at the ports are pushing smugglers “to try to go south between the ports — and that’s a new development.”

She cited Border Patrol statistics that show that from fiscal 2009 to 2012, agents seized 39 percent more drugs, 71 percent more currency, and 189 percent more weapons along the southwest border than in fiscal 2005-2008.

“When you line up the stats for the Arizona-Mexico border what you see is that they have all trended, and in some respects significantly trended, in the right direction,” Napolitano said.

Napolitano said she was encouraged by the progress made by a bipartisan group of senators working on a comprehensive immigration-reform bill. She called for “better tools” for cracking down on employers who hire undocumented workers and a stronger system for employers to verify who is legally authorized to work in the U.S and who isn’t.

She also called for revamping the visa system so that immigrants needed to help grow the economy can enter legally.

“Our immigration system needs to be rebooted so that it matches the needs of the 21st century, and not the needs of the 20th century,” Napolitano said.

Napolitano toured the Arizona border with Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Rep. Ron Barber, D-Tucson.

She visited the port of entry in Douglas and met with local law-enforcement officials in Cochise County.

She also said border security needs to be enhanced without choking off legitimate travel and trade.

“The economy in this area is very dependent on the travel and trade through the Arizona ports of entry,” she said, noting that last year more than $20 billion of trade came through Arizona ports of entry.

“So moving traffic through the ports even as we work to secure the areas between the ports (is) so very very important,” Napolitano said.

She said Customs and Border Protection has increased the use of aerial surveillance to spot illegal immigrants and drug smugglers and radio their locations to agents on the ground.

In The Republic’s interview, Napolitano dismissed as incorrect a Los Angeles Times report that a drone-based radar system, recently tested in Arizona, found more than half of illegal border crossers were not being caught — a higher number than officials have previously estimated.

In the two-day test, she said, the drone’s system couldn’t see apprehensions made outside its field of vision.

Barber asserted Friday that the Tucson Sector “remains one of the most porous areas of the border.”

Napolitano told The Republic she didn’t know what Barber meant by porous and joked, “I’m going to have to talk with Ron.”

Addressing the concerns of Border Patrol agents, Napolitano also said “we’ll do everything we can to minimize furloughs and the reductions of overtime” that the DHS had announced in response to automatic budget cuts, known as sequestration, that began last month. A supplemental budget bill restored some funds to Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the DHS, and she said the agency is still studying “how best to minimize the disruptions caused by the sequester.”

Napolitano’s visit to Arizona comes as a bipartisan group of senators known as the “Gang of Eight” continue work on a comprehensive immigration-reform bill. The group includes Arizona’s senators, Republicans John McCain and Jeff Flake.

Since his re-election, President Barack Obama has made an immigration overhaul that includes a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants one of his top priorities.

Many Republicans in Congress, as well as Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, however, are not convinced the border has been adequately secured and want to see more done before Congress moves forward with reforms.

But on Friday, Napolitano, mixing her metaphors slightly, said, “you can keep throwing buckets at the border, but at some point you need to fix the ship.”

“The time for immigration reform is here,” she said.

“I think you need to think about immigration not only in terms of border security,” she said, but also in terms of immigration reforms, including “what we do with those already illegally in the country? Do we continue to ignore, basically that they are here?”

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